


Just

by MarkoftheAsphodel



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
Genre: F/M, Family Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24549010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/pseuds/MarkoftheAsphodel
Summary: Finn grows up in the space between polite fictions and the realities too *rude* for a well-brought-up person to embrace. It is, in a sense, what he's there for.
Relationships: Beowolf/Raquesis | Lachesis, Cian | Quan/Ethlyn, Finn/Raquesis | Lachesis
Kudos: 31





	Just

_One_

“It’s just a chest cold,” says Mother with a small laugh as she breaks off in the middle of the story she’s reading to him, the ancient tale of the Dawn Dragon and the Dusk Dragon, which is so confusing in parts that half of their story hour is Finn asking questions that Mother tries to answer. Finn pretends he believes her explanation, the same way he decides to accept Mother’s explanations about the dragon story.

Father’s illness started with a “chest cold,” too. But Finn was four then, and the adults thought he didn’t understand things, and they weren’t careful around him. Now Finn is six, and the adults are more careful now but they don’t know Finn can read the words on a book’s pages just as well as Mother or his Lord Brother can. Or that he can read letters left lying around, and receipts, and other things…

Finn leans his head against Mother’s shoulder and listens. And _listens._

_Two_

“It’s just until you’ve finished your education,” says Lady Sister as she takes Callie from his arms.

Finn nods. Lady Sister keeps telling him this, but Finn’s seen the half-finished draft of a letter that Lord Brother left in the library. He knows he’s being given away, the way all three of Callie’s kittens were given away. 

Lady Sister’s voice is sweet and she tells him cheerful things that Finn doesn’t really hear about the fine education he’ll receive at the castle and the wonderful feasting they’ll have together when he comes home a proper knight. He knows he’s bleeding under his shirt where poor Callie dug in her claws one last time, and he doesn’t want Lady Sister to notice. He doesn’t want her to try and make it better.

_Three_

“It’s just a touch of catarrh,” laughs Lord Quan as he waits for Finn to mix him the drink he’s taking every morning, the one made from Agustrian peach brandy and fresh mint from the Agusty palace gardens.

Lord Quan is not suffering from any lingering catarrh. The congestion in his throat clears once he’s had that morning draught, which also brightens Lord Quan’s eyes and alleviates the mild headaches he’s now prone to in mornings… especially mornings after the raucous parties that now punctuate the tedium of Agustrian occupation, where every day starts to feel the same under the languid western sun.

“Your drink, my lord,” says Finn, after placing the mint spring _exactly right_ in the silver cup, and he pretends Lord Quan’s smile is meant entirely for him and not at all for the morning pick-me-up.

_Four_

“It’s just breakfast didn’t agree with me,” says the Princess of Nordion over the mess she’s made in the stables.

Finn gives her the handkerchief that Lady Ethlyn embroidered for him only a fortnight ago.

“I can make you the same draught I prepare for Lord Quan when the mornings don’t agree with him,” he says.

Princess Lachesis demurs, will accept only tea with the right amount of rose-petal conserve. Finn knows exactly what the princess has been doing with her “sword instructor” in the afternoons, but it’s not his place to say anything about that. He’s there to give her riding lessons and attend to milady as her needs require, and right now it’s making milady tea and resigning himself to never getting that handkerchief back.

_Five_

“This was just supposed to be a little rescue mission,” sighs Lady Ethlyn as they work to give some sense of home, of place, to their quarters in Sailane Castle.

Finn hands her the glorious fur spread that his lord and lady acquired in Agustria, spoils from Heirhein they’d claimed as part of their victory over that house. It was an ornament to their grand bed in Agusty, where the night air rarely carried any bite. In Silesse, it hardly seems enough though winter hasn’t yet settled over the land.

But Lady Ethlyn’s bright smile is trembling now, the way it does so often when she thinks of Lady Deirdre, of Lord Eldigan. Finn can share in some measure of his lady’s hurt, as water-reeds tremble from the ripples in a once-smooth pond disturbed, but he has never learned how to offer comfort to this kind of pain, the kind that can’t be tidied up or relieved through tasks. 

Instead, it’s Lady Ethlyn who gives them both a measure of relief. She blinks and puts on a smile and they continue decorating.

_Six_

“It’s just until this misunderstanding with the King of Granvalle is cleared up,” says Lord Quan. “We’ll be back before Leif has his first tooth in.”

_Seven_

“I’m just not used to the food here yet,” says Lachesis as she dabs at her lips with his handkerchief, the last Lady Ethlyn ever embroidered for him. “You people simply _can’t_ make a proper cup of tea.”

Finn tries to smile at the echo of the banter they’d shared back in sunny Agusty, discussing the merits of Agustrian wine against Manster wine, Nordion sweets against Leonster confections as he taught her how to master wielding a lance from horseback.

He can’t. There are too many echoes of Agusty. He knows what’s going to happen next.

_Eight_

He knows what’s going to happen next.

“Finn, you’re acting strange,” says Lord Leif, his dark eyes somehow like Lord Quan’s and Lady Ethlyn’s all at once.

“Am I, Lord Leif? Shall we go on a trip together?”

_Just a little trip._

“Grandma, too?” asks Lord Leif.

“No, Her Majesty must stay and watch over the castle.”

_Just for a little while._

“We’re going with Lady Lachesis and baby Nanna. Won’t that be fun?”

_Just a little outing, a little rescue mission, a little misunderstanding…_

_Just…_

The tears dry on his face as he rides, Lord Leif cradled in one arm as one might carry a kitten, Lachesis on her white horse running behind him, Nanna tucked under her mantle. Every turn of fortune in Finn’s life has come to this moment, flames behind them and darkness ahead of them and Lord Leif looking back over his shoulder, and now something inside of Finn stops.

Just like that.

**Author's Note:**

> So, Finn's siblings (or half-siblings) are OCs; the idea from them came from Finn's backstory snippet in the Treasure artbook that he's an orphan from a key noble family of Leonster. Since he doesn't really behave like a proud noble heir-- we never even find out the name of his lands, or the rank of his parents-- I assume either the family fortunes went to hell a la House Cornwell in Elibe or Finn was a younger sibling whose older sib(s) had zero interest in raising him once the parents died. Either way, he was shipped off to the royal family to raise. 
> 
> Other inspirations include the Cipher card of Finn and Leif escaping Leonster, the "Leonster Falls" short story in the Thracia 776 Illustrated Works artbook, the quotes from Shouzou Kaga in the "Fire Emblem Roundtable" that Ethlyn was like a big sister to Finn and that Leonster is analogous to Italy while Agustria is inspired by France, and a scene in the Fujimori Nuts manga wherein Quan is an unpleasant drunk at a party in Agustria.


End file.
